03.12.2024 - When the first snow falls and the Christmas holidays are just around the corner, many of us dream of visiting one of Switzerland’s famous holiday destinations. To find the right place to stay, we use a search engine or one of the popular booking sites. But there are scammers out there who want to steal your money and don’t care if they ruin your holiday. In this week’s review, we discuss recent examples of this type of scam.
A case that was reported to us last week involves an expensive chalet for rent in one of Switzerland’s top holiday destinations. A scam website is offering entire luxury chalets for rent, with prices ranging from tens of thousands of francs per week. The pictures and descriptions of the properties were copied from a real rental website. On the real rental site, the chalets are booked for several months – but on the scam site, they are available no matter what dates you enter when you book. On the scam site, the first half of the rent is due immediately upon booking and the balance is due 30 days prior to arrival. The large sums involved make this a lucrative scam for criminals. As well as the financial loss, victims who don't spot the scam in time face the added frustration of arriving at a property they haven't actually booked and having to find alternative accommodation in high season.
To protect yourself from this type of scam, it's a good idea to read reviews on independent websites. In the case reported to us, you’ll find numerous reviews for the genuine rental site, but you won’t find a single review for the scam site on any independent site. The scam site itself, however, is full of fake positive reviews. This is a common trick used by scammers: on their scam site they post fake positive reviews and ratings, because this is enough to convince many people and they look no further. In our example, the scam site was only registered at the end of August 2024, but the reviews on the site go back to 2023. In many cases, the registration date is an important indicator of a site's trustworthiness.
Fake deals on popular booking sites
Even on reputable booking and property websites, fraudulent offers appear all the time. A case was reported to us last week where a customer on a real rental site was asked by the landlord renting the property to complete the booking process by email. A short time later, the landlord emailed the victim a link that they could use to make the booking. The victim was told to enter their travel details and confirm within 48 hours. The website the scammers linked to looked deceptively similar to the real booking platform – even the URL appeared correct unless you looked very closely.
At the end of the process, you have to enter your credit card details to confirm the booking. With this information, the scammers can make fraudulent charges until you realise that you have been scammed – which may not happen until you arrive at the rental property and are told by the real landlord that your booking was fake.
Recommendations
- Before you book, check that the web address (URL) and landlord are correct;
- Report suspicious offers to the booking site;
- Read customer reviews. You can find reviews online by searching for the name of the company along with the word “reviews”. Remember that reviews can also be faked. If you can't find any reviews, it's most likely that the booking platform has recently been set up for fraudulent purposes;
- Be very suspicious of offers that seem too good to be true – they probably are;
- Check whether the publisher's details are provided on the website, and whether they are complete and appear plausible. For example, are a contact address, telephone number and email address provided and do they appear to be correct, and is there a commercial register number? A typical sign of a scam site is that you can only contact them by filling in a form, not by email or phone.
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Last modification 03.12.2024
